"The development process for the FMD vaccine is currently ongoing since the minister instructs the Center for Pharma Veterinary to reproduce the PMK vaccine," Head of the Ministry of Agriculture's Public Relations and Public Information Bureau, Kuntoro Boga Andri, noted in a written statement received here, Saturday.
Andri later remarked that Minister of Agriculture, Syahrul Yasin Limpo, had directly instructed the Director-General of Livestock and Animal Health to immediately produce vaccines after the emergence of cases of FMD in East Java at the end of last April.
Andri said that with effective vaccination efforts, strict, systematic, and sustainable control measures have been proven to eradicate FMD in most countries to become disease-free.
Vaccination is a solution and a ray of hope for farmers throughout Indonesia. With the administration of FMD vaccine, Indonesia is expected to become free from the disease, he added.
Indonesia started producing FMD vaccines in 1952 and was able to implement a mass vaccination program since 1964. Indonesia has been free from FMD since 1986 and has been recognized in the ASEAN since 1987 as well as internationally recognized by the World Animal Health Organization (Office International des Epizooties-OIE) in 1990.
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Meanwhile, Head of the Center for Veterinary Medicine at the Ministry of Agriculture, Edy Budi Susila, explained that the process of developing FMD vaccine had been ongoing since Minister Limpo gave instructions for the production of FMD vaccine.
The process of developing FMD vaccine had earlier been conducted to free Indonesia from FMD during the 1983-1986 period. Based on this experience, Susila believed that Pusvetma can develop domestic vaccines to control FMD in future.
He noted that the vaccine production process at Pusvetma had begun and entered the isolate purification and the sixth phase.
"The process of developing this FMD vaccine is by using the tissue culture technology with BKH 21 cells. The vaccine is inactive and formulated with adjuvants," he stated.
Susila noted that the development process for production of FMD vaccines was lengthy since Pusvetma had not produced vaccines for the disease, as Indonesia was declared free of FMD without vaccination by the World Animal Health Agency (OIE) in 1990.
In the wake of various existing challenges, he ensured that the Pusvetma Team will be able to develop the required vaccine production, although it requires various adjustments.
"Pusvetma will maximize the strength of Human Resources (HR) and existing equipment at Pusvetma's vaccine production facilities," he concluded.
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Translator: Aditya Ramadhan, Resinta S
Editor: Suharto
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